What Are You Looking At?

My blog. And what are you looking at?

Monday, April 21, 2008

DOUBLE WHAT NOW?

This weekend we went to the Cubs game. It was U's first game, and he seemed to have a pretty good times. He likes to clap, and the Cubs won 13-1, so he had lots of opportunties. That was fun.However, the best thing we saw was in the stands. There was a young woman of a certain type (think Obama girl, the Packer Bikini Girls, and similar) wearing a t-shirt with the logo below on it.

Seriously. The shirt is supposed to be in "honor" of Fukudome (it has his name and number on the back). Obviously the rascist content seriously undercuts any "honor." However, the irony of a kind of, well, trampy woman, wearing a shirt that says "Horry Kow" on it was fantastic. I'm not sure that she understood why people were smiling so much when she walked by.

Oh, and she was Asian, which added a layer of irony I could not even have hoped for.

Friday, April 18, 2008

A WORLD IN CHAOS

Everything is going crazy. I am not sure what the signs of the End Times are, but these have to be a good start.

First, as most of you know, a cougar was killed in Chicago this week. A 150 pound cougar. And this was not "near Chicago." This was in Chicago. Look here for the google map, and look at the street view. That is a school on the 3400 block of Hamilton (where the beast was killed). How did it get there? People think maybe it was a pet. That is a little hard to believe. It could have come all the way down from Wisconsin (where cougars have been spotted). Once it got to Wilmette (where a cougar was reported a month ago), it could follow the river all the way down to where it was killed. Crazy.

Then, last night, we had a 5.2 earthquake in southern Illinois. It rattled buildings and windows in Chicago. While there are periodic earthquakes in the area, and the New Madrid fault will eventually (probably) destroy Memphis, we don't really do 5.2 earthquakes. We expect those things here, or here. Not here.

Finally, L sent me this article. It is about the University of Chicago Law School cutting off internet access in most classrooms. This is because students are alleged to be surfing the internet more or less constantly instead of paying attention in class. Since law professors still mostly like to pretend that they utilize the Socratic method in class (most really don't, thank God), it is very problematic to have a room full of people not paying attention. Here's the old part. I went through law school. I did reasonably well. I cannot imagine a single reason in a typical class that you would need internet access. None. Therefore, I can't really understand why they turned internet access on in the first place. How does this denote chaos? Well, what I didn't mention is that I spent three years of law school doing crossword puzzles in almost every class I took. I was the poster child for paying just enough attention to stay out of trouble. And I want to deny the web to a new generation of slackers. Terrible.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

THE POLITICS OF PRIMARIES

Reuters had this story about how Obama is trying to knock Clinton out of the race in Pennsylvania. It is basically the same story everyone wrote when Ohio and Texas were voting. Personally I don't think Clinton will stop until/unless she runs out of money.

Anyway, I have been seeing this argument for Clinton's candidacy, and it makes no sense to me. It goes Clinton's "wins in Ohio, California, New Jersey and elsewhere proved her strength in big states critical to beating McCain." Maybe I don't understand how primaries in other states work. Clinton's wins in Ohio, California, New Jersey and elsewhere were (a) generally among Democrats, and (b) were versus Obama. They don't translate into how the general populace would vote in Clinton versus McCain. In fact, they are pretty close to irrelevant to that question.

Am I missing something? Is it a complete misuse of data and perhaps logic to say:

(1) More Democrats in Ohio voted for Clinton than Obama(2) Ohio is a bellweather stateTherefore, Clinton will win the bellweather state of Ohio in a generalelection.

Maybe the conclusion states less, i.e.:

(1) More Democrats in Ohio voted for Clinton than Obama(2) Ohio is a bellweather stateTherefore, Clinton is more likely than Obama to win the bellweather stateof Ohio in a general election.

In either case, the conclusion seems unwarranted to me. It seems to me that first the Democrats all need to get together on a state-by-state (Florida and Michigan excluded) basis and agree on a candidate. Then that person has to, separate and apart from the primaries, win the general election. I guess I would point out to the Clinton campaign that winning big states does not guarantee success in the general election. For instance, in the last five primaries New Jersey was won by Dukakis, Clinton, Clinton, Gore, and Kerry. Two presidential terms, three losers. McGovern won the California primary in 1972 and got beat silly in the general election.

Maybe instead of trying to weasel out reasons Clinton should be nominated without getting more delegates or votes than Obama, the Clinton people could devote their energies to making sure she doesn't lie about sniper fire anymore.

Monday, April 07, 2008

THIS WEEKEND

This weekend was finally glorious. Over 60 degrees each day (first time since October that's happened) and the Cubs won twice. We had U out for a walk each day, dinner with friends Saturday night, and the Big Park on Sunday. There is a new picture on the fotoblog from Sunday. It was fantastic.

Which is why the below is so disturbing. It is from the 10 day forecast at weather.com. It is for 60601 (Chicago). It says "time to try snowboarding" on Sunday. Seriously. I don't mean to be a wimp, but after six months of not having back-to-back 60's, and not more than three days without precipitation all winter, I am getting just a little irritated with "time to try snowboarding" in April.